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Entries for October 2017

This post is courtesy of Carol Stratton, journalist and author of two books including Lake Surrender, and, Changing Zip Codes. It is based on an interview with a Junior Counselor in summer 2017, the subject of the post, Nicholas Keough, as well as her degree in Recreational Therapy and experience working with young people with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Great thanks to Carol for her patience working with Camp Hawkeye during the busy summer, the time she took with Nick, and her willingness to share some of her writing with us here.
The post can be found in its full and original form at the following web address: http://www.carolgstratton.com/camp-hawkeye/
Camp Hawkeye
I love to hear stories of organizations who make camp a reality for special needs kids. Camp Hawkeye, is one of them. I’m highlighting one unique camp that opened their arms to a boy from Canada. I hope you are encouraged as to how they made a difference.
This last summer a young man named Nicholas Keough had a dream come true. The high school student from Montreal, Canada became a Counselor in Training at Camp Hawkeye, located on beautiful Lake Kanasatka in New Hampshire.
It might seem like an ordinary dream to many but a...
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If we look inside a classroom (or as you see in the films Mean Girls or High School Musical), you see particular groups sitting on separate tables. We see a 'sporty' group, a 'nerdy' group, an 'international' group, most of these cliques keep to themselves. We are either part of it, or feel very excluded from all of them. Now let's take a look at life outside of school. The funny thing is, nothing has changed. We still have very closed communities. Communities of religion, race, sexual identity, social status etc... Hearing and seeing these communities can make us feel very distant and different from the people that belong to them. But then, how are we meant to know what we could share with them?
“I know there is strength in the differences between us. I know there is comfort, where we overlap.”
Ani DiFranco
At Hawkeye, we celebrate diversity by creating an inclusive environment for different people. How do we stop people judging one another based on what we look like, what we say, what we do? Well that takes work, being open-minded is tough. That is one piece that makes it valuable; the struggle...
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